Virginia au pair pleads guilty to manslaughter in connection with double murder tied to affair
Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office
(FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.) — A Virginia au pair pleaded guilty Tuesday to manslaughter in connection to the 2023 murders of her employer’s wife and another man.
Juliana Peres Magalhaes’s employer, Brendan Banfield, was charged with murder last month in the case — a year after Magalhaes was arrested and charged.
Prosecutors said Magalhaes and Banfield began an extramarital affair in August 2022, and by the fall of that year, Banfield expressed his desire to “be rid of” his wife, Christine Banfield, according to the plea agreement obtained by ABC News.
Throughout the months that followed, Brendan Banfield would allegedly flesh out this plan, according to the prosecution. However, Magalhaes did not want to continue with at several points, prosecutors said, and allegedly did not believe Banfield would follow through with it, according to the plea agreement.
In the leadup to the double murder, Brendan Banfield allegedly created a profile on the sexual fetish site FetLife, where he found a man named Joe Ryan, the plea agreement details. He then allegedly had Magalhaes call Ryan, pretending to be Christine Banfield, to confirm both were willing to engage in sex at her home with the use of “restraints,” according to prosecutors.
When Ryan arrived at the house in February 2023, Banfield allegedly shot him in the head and then stabbed his wife to death, according to the prosecution agreement. Magalhaes then also shot Ryan, prosecutors said.
Magalhaes then allegedly called 911 and pretended Ryan had been an intruder, prosecutors said.
Magalhaes initially faced second-degree murder charges in connection to Ryan’s death. On Tuesday, Magalhaes pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.
She could face up to 10 years in prison.
Her sentencing is scheduled to take place on March 21 after Banfield’s February trial.
“Today’s agreement marks a significant step forward in this case, and it is an important development in our pursuit of justice for the victims and their families,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said in a statement read outside the courthouse. “Much of the information that led to this agreement cannot be made public at this time due to the upcoming criminal trial against the other defendant in this matter.”
ABC News’ Cristina Corbin, Briana Stewart and Gemma Schneider contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A former OceanGate employee got emotional while remembering the people killed in the catastrophic implosion of the company’s Titan submersible during a hearing on the incident Tuesday.
“I had the privilege of knowing the explorers whose lives were lost,” Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, said during the U.S. Coast Guard hearing. “There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and their loss. It’s been a difficult year for them, for all of us.”
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were killed when the Titan imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Bay said she believes the teenager was the youngest person to ever dive on the Titan, and that there were “no true misgivings” about his age ahead of the dive.
“Stockton had spoke to the family directly on a few occasions and met with them personally,” she said. “So there was no concerns once they had been spoken with and understood. Everyone understood and was ready and excited to dive.”
Bay started working for OceanGate in December 2018. She said part of her duties included the care of the “mission specialists” — what the company called those who paid to go on dives — during expeditions.
She described a mission specialist, who paid $250,000 for the Titan dive, as someone who was “curious about deep-sea exploration” and understood that “this wasn’t a luxury trip.”
“As Stockton put it, there was no chocolate on the pillow,” she said. “They were invited to be involved and take an active role as much as possible as they wanted to.”
Towing concerns
Bay said she was present for all Titan missions in 2021 and 2022, as well as the first three in 2023 — missing the fourth and fifth, which would turn out to be the last, due to a family obligation.
OceanGate utilized the Horizon Arctic as its support ship in 2021 and 2022, though the vessel was no longer available in 2023 so they started utilizing the Polar Prince, she said. The 2023 missions started earlier in the year than previous missions due to the Polar Prince’s availability, she said.
Asked if she had any concerns about towing the Titan the 370 nautical miles to the Titanic wreck site, she said, “Certainly.”
“I think anybody would have, you know, concerns that this was going to be more challenging and more difficult in some aspects,” she said. “Stockton assured us that he was up for the challenge and the team was up for the challenge.”
She noted differences in the weather and water conditions on the 2023 missions compared to previous years.
“The seas were much higher than earlier on, than I remember being on the Horizon Arctic,” she said. “It was much colder. There’s a lot of rain.”
Asked if the Titan was ever damaged during the towing that year, she said she believed the vessel lost or damaged a fairing — a plastic cover that goes over the sub, “just like a car bumper.” She said on one or two occasions the platform also took on water and started to list.
Bay refutes prior witness testimony
A former OceanGate contractor who testified during the hearing last week, Antonella Wilby, told investigators about a conversation she had with Bay about a 2022 dive, during which passengers heard a loud bang as the Titan was ascending.
Wilby testified that when she brought up a customer’s concerns about the loud bang to Bay, Bay told her, “You have a bad attitude. You don’t have an explorer mindset. You know, we’re innovative and we’re cowboys, and a lot of people can’t handle that.”
Asked to explain those remarks on Tuesday, Bay refuted the testimony.
“I don’t believe that either of those statements is exactly what I had said,” she said.
She said Wilby’s concerns were “looked into and notated,” though she had no knowledge of what she was specifically referencing.
Bay said she did not deal with safety concerns and would refer people to the head of engineering, the director of operations and Rush.
“I did ask her if she did have concerns, to bring those up to those particular people,” Bay said.
She said she believed OceanGate staff felt comfortable raising safety concerns with Rush.
“I wasn’t witness to those types of meetings, but I was witness to people saying, ‘Oh yeah, I talked to Stockton about that today,'” she said.
OceanGate’s financial problems
At the beginning of 2023, OceanGate’s finances were “getting very tight,” and employees were asked to have their paychecks deferred once, Bay said.
“We were looking to make ends meet, and if we were able to defer our paychecks, there was an offer that Stockton had derived — I believe with an attorney or whomever — that we could delay our paychecks and be paid a small amount of interest and recaptured at a specific time,” she said.
She said she and Rush delayed their paychecks once.
Phil Brooks, the former engineering director of OceanGate, testified on Monday that he left the company in February 2023 in part due to the financial issues.
“It was clear that the company was economically very stressed,” he said.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
The two-week hearing on the incident is scheduled to run through Friday.
(WINDER, Ga.) — Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting, is set to face a judge Friday for his arraignment.
This will mark the first court appearance for the teenager, who authorities allege killed four people, including two teachers and two students, at his high school and injured nine others. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations previously said he will be tried as an adult.
He has been charged with four counts of felony murder, with additional charges expected, the GBI said. Gray surrendered at the scene to the school resource officers, according to the GBI.
He was taken into custody on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET, seven minutes after the initial service call went out, according to the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office, which employs the school resource officers.
On Thursday night, Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old, was arrested and charged with murder in connection with the deadly shooting, the GBI said.
Colin Gray, 54, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the GBI said.
At a news conference on Thursday evening, Chris Hosey, director of the GBI said that the father was arrested for “knowingly allowing his son, Colt, to possess a weapon.”
It is currently unclear when Colin Gray is expected to appear in court or whether he has obtained legal counsel following his arrest.
The Pentagon on Tuesday granted honorable discharges to more than 800 veterans who were separated from the U.S. military because of their sexual orientation during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which was in effect from February 1994 to September 2011.
More than 13,000 service members were kicked out under the policy, close to 2,000 of whom received less than fully honorable discharges, according to Christa Specht, head of legal policy at the DOD’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. After 2011, most of those who filed appeals were upgraded, but others might not have been aware this was an option.
Last year, the Defense Department began a proactive review of the remaining cases. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that its review has led to an upgrade for more than 800 veterans, without them having to appeal. This could affect the benefits they have access to.
“After a year of exceptional work, the Military Department Review Boards directed relief in 96.8% of the 851 cases that they proactively reviewed. What this means is that of the nearly 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% now have an honorable discharge,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The vast majority of those separated under the policy now have honorable discharges, according to Austin.
DADT was signed into law in 1993 under the administration of then-President Bill Clinton. In December 2010, then-President Barack Obama signed into law a repeal of the policy. It took effect in 2011.
